


freefall

by lucylikestowrite



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mature-lite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:23:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucylikestowrite/pseuds/lucylikestowrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw pulls the trigger and Root falls, clutching at her shoulder.</p><p>--</p><p>Martine pulls the trigger, pulls the trigger again, and Shaw falls.</p><p>--</p><p>Root’s fingers curl inside of her, and Shaw falls again, Root’s name falling out of her mouth, all at once a prayer and a curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	freefall

Shaw pulls the trigger and Root falls, clutching at her shoulder.

\--

Martine pulls the trigger, pulls the trigger again, and Shaw falls.

\--

Root’s fingers curl inside of her, and Shaw falls again, Root’s name falling out of her mouth, all at once a prayer and a curse.

\--

When Samaritan had her, Shaw had a lot of time to think. Too much time to think. Maybe they wanted that. For her to pick apart and piece back together her life, and to go mad in the process.

It probably would've been easier to fall, to succumb to Samaritan. Falling was simple, passive. She was not a passive person, yet it seemed to be all she did.

Her whole life had been falling. Falling into something and falling out of something in the time it takes a bullet to leave a gun and lodge itself in your side: not long.

She was not a passive person, she knew that. She was the sort of person who kissed a goodbye instead of saying it, who pushed an apology into shaking shoulders with her hands. She had fallen to her knees, and the tang of blood in the back of her throat had mixed with the taste of Root still on her lips and it had felt right.

She had chosen to fall (she had chosen to push the button and it was virtually the same thing) but in the end the bullets that had pushed their way under her skin and buried themselves in her side hadn't asked to be there. She didn't put them there; she fell and they caught her, wrapping themselves around her body and pulling her under.

\--

Root’s arms are wrapped around her waist, fingers digging in, holding on tight, and she is still falling.

\--

She pulls the trigger, and Root falls. She pulls the trigger, and Root falls. She pulls the trigger, and Root falls.

She pulls the trigger, and Root falls. When she was at her worst, when whatever they were doing to her was making her doubt everything, somehow she knew that that was real. She had pulled the trigger, and Root had fallen.

A bullet from her gun had slammed into Root’s shoulder, had made contact.

When they mess with her head, sometimes she forgets the kiss. But she never forgets Root falling.

\--

The room is dark and Root’s eyes are dark as she kisses her way down Shaw’s body. Shaw falls.

\--

Martine pulls the trigger, and Shaw falls. But Root falls as well. She sees her, out of the corner of her eye, falling against the wire, her fingers pressing against the grate, her mouth screaming.

Root’s voice is loud, even through the smoke and the bullets. Shaw hears Root falling, and is glad when she stops, when her voice fades away, a split-second before the world goes black, because when Root was screaming, Shaw wasn't sure she'd made the right decision. When she stops, she knows Root has hit the ground, has finished falling - and if she's finished falling, she can get back up.

\--

No-one has ever looked at Shaw the way Root does, and it terrifies her. But how can she love someone, she wonders, when even buried deep inside each other, she's still falling.

\--

Shaw is in freefall. The door to her cell opens and it is not Martine (maybe she hasn't seen Martine in months? Maybe she saw her yesterday?) and somehow she has a gun in her hands, and Root is staring at her, wide-eyed, as she raises the gun and aims.

If she loved Root, why did she shoot her? She didn't love her. Shaw didn't love her, she shot her and she fell, and at some point she kissed her, but was that before or after? She kissed her and she felt Root breathing underneath her fingertips, but she didn't love her.

She pulls the trigger, and Root doesn’t fall.

The bullet slams into the wall behind Root. It has cut a line along Root’s arm, bright red, blood welling up along the graze. Root doesn't do anything. She just stares, opening her mouth and closing it again.

She doesn't even move when Shaw walks towards her, gun still raised. She stays still, and Shaw wonders if she can see that Shaw is falling. Shaw is walking and falling at the same time, and Shaw is aiming a gun at the one person she knows (how does she know? She doesn't love her) could catch her.

Shaw keeps walking, her gun steady (where did she get the gun? Who gave it to her?) and she doesn't know what's going to happen until Root brings up a hand to Shaw's wrist (she’s shaking, when did she start shaking?), and tugs it downward, still silent. 

Shaw lowers her arm (her arm falls), and Root eases the gun out of hand, tucking it in her waistband.

Root rests her palm against Shaw’s cheek, and pulls Shaw back against her. Root’s back hits the wall of the cell and her lips meet Shaw’s, and Shaw stops falling, just for a second.

\--

When she wakes up, screaming, or whimpering, or just terrified, Root is there. Root is always there. Root catches her.

\--

Root is changing, and Shaw is watching her from the bed (their bed? Her bed. It's her bed in Root’s apartment, but Root’s in it most of the time). Root peels off the blouse she was wearing. The scar on her shoulder is big and ugly, a starburst on an otherwise perfect expanse of clavicle. Root moves to pick up the t-shirt she is changing into, but Shaw holds up a hand, says, “stop”, and Root does, quirking an eyebrow but saying nothing.

Shaw gets up from the bed, her eyes focused on the scar.

She had shot Root and Root had fallen.

Root had fallen, but now she is here, in front of Shaw, breathing. Her heart is beating, and Shaw knows this, because she can feel it under the hand on Root’s chest, and she can feel the blood pumping in Root’s lips when she kisses her and bites down.

Shaw hits the ground, and stops falling.


End file.
